That Would Be Telling
I know this has been posted before but the original post seems to have been buried and I think it is worth bringing up again. Lost has a lot of similarities to the late ’60s British show The Prisoner.
For those that are unfamiliar with it The Prisoner was about a spy who suddenly resigns from his position with no explaination given to his superiors. While in his apartment he is gassed. When he recovers he finds himself in a replica of his apartment contained in a strange resort like compund known as the Village. Everyone within the Village is referred to by a number instead of their name; the Prisoner’s is No. 6. No. 2, the Village’s seeming mayor and cheif of security, informs No. 6 that he is there to give information to the Vilage about why No. 6 resigned.
Like the Island on Lost the Village is nearly impossible to escape from. It is surrounded by the ocean on one side and high mountins on the other three. If it looks like an escape attempt may be successful Control, the part of the Village that moniters the prisoners, releases a Rover. Rover is part of the Village’s security system and takes the form of a large, white glowing sphere that chases it’s prey and either incapitates the escapee or engulfs and smothers them. Rover is basically the Village’s version of Smokey. Like Smokey, Rover emits animal like noises and howels when performing it’s security duties.
Within the Vilage No. 2 seemed to pretty much be the leader but No. 2 was always given direction from No. 1, who was never shown till the end of the series. On Lost we have become familiar with the Other’s power structure. The leader at the time recieves instructions from Jacob via Richard Alpert. So we can say that whoever is leading the Others at the time is equivalent to No. 2 on the Prisoner, Jacob would be No 1.
Like Lost, The Prisoner dealt with many themes concerned with humanity. These themes were mainly about individuality versus conforming (remember the brainwashing scene with Karl), rebellion (which our Losties seem to have a knack for), and choice (Jacob tells Ben that there is always a choice).
The Prisoner was a show ahead of it’s time and in a way paved the way for a show like Lost to be produced. What was happening in it’s episodes was not always straight forward and the entire show had a shroud of mystery about it. It garnered a huge following of fans who love to dwelve into the mysteries of the show. If you are a fan of Lost (of course why else would you be here) you will enjoy The Prisoner and be treated to a good show that may be part of the inspiration of Lost.
Achalli, there are definitely some similarities between aspects of The Prisoner and Lost.
The writers are avid sci-fi fans, and have no doubt drawn from the show as they did with Dr. Who, in “Flashes Before Your Eyes”. They gave Charlie the middle name of ‘Hieronymous’, which was a shout-out to and episode entitled The Hieronymous Machine, if memory serves me.
You have forgotten to include the details on the upcoming Mini-Series and when it will be airing, and on which network.
It is starring Jim Caviezel and Sir Ian McKellan, so I expect that it will be very well acted, and highly worth watching!
Hey Dabs, I didn’t include the details because I was trying to remain focused on Lost, in retrospect it probably wouldn’t have hurt to include them. I just found two web sites you may want to check out. The first is The Prisoner Online (www.theprisoneronline.com) and it is basicaly news about the upcoming mini-series. The second one is Seek The Six (www.seekthesix.com) and it’s a game. You’ll be presented with 6 groups of photos and you have to find the photo that contains the 6, some are obvious and others are not. If you find all the 6’s you will be assigned a Village number. I’m Number 516644. I added the numbers just for shits and giggles and got a sum of 26. I added these two and ended up with 8. Looks like an Island / Village connection.
I’ve been spending off Island time in the Village trying to reaquaint myself with the Prisoner. As if trying to steer clear of Smokey wasn’t hard enough I now have to deal with Rover. I just hope they don’t decide to team up against me.